Donate links menu

How we are governed

You are here

How we are governed

Concern Worldwide UK is governed and regulated by our Trustees.

Trustees are elected on a rotational basis at the annual general meeting (AGM). Drawn from diverse business and professional backgrounds, they bring a broad range of experience and skills. Our Trustees are never paid members of staff.

Shortly after the AGM new Trustees attend an induction course to familiarise themselves with their responsibilities. This covers their role as board members, the governance framework within Concern Worldwide UK, our development and humanitarian work and the risk environment.

The board meets at least three times a year.

Our Trustees

Zamila Bunglawala

Zamila is a Deputy Director of the Race Disparity Unit, Cabinet Office leading pioneering work on data having created the Ethnicity Facts and Figures website. Through her extensive national and international policy, strategy and programmes experience in senior roles – including No.10 Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office, Whitehall departments, Open Society Foundation, Young Foundation, Brookings Institution, United Nations in Darfur, Sudan and Kathmandu, Nepal – Zamila has led a wide range of policy and program projects, specialising in education and employment, gender, SGBV, ethnic and faith minority groups, humanitarian conflicts and development. She is widely published and is an international public policy speaker on gender and minority equality issues and appears regularly in print media and TV. She is on the board of UNESCO-UK and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Manchester and The Young Foundation. Zamila is recognised among the UK's BAME 100 Talent, in 2017.

Diane Chilangwa Farmer

Diane joined Concern Worldwide (UK) board as Trustee in February 2017. A qualified Social Researcher, Diane completed a PhD in Gender at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a MSC in Gender, Culture and Politics from Birkbeck University of London. She also has an MSc in NGO Management from Cass Business School.

Diane is a Founding Partner of PDC: Professional Diversity Consultants. PDC provides research based advisory services relating to organisational approaches to diversity in employment through both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.

Previously Diane worked as Journalist in Jordan for the Jordan Times and Jerusalem Star Newspapers. She also worked for Young and Rubicam (Zambia) Ltd as Head of Public Relations, and The Financial Times Newspaper and FT Conferences as their Business Representative for Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Diane is also author of a book titled, Black Women in Management: Paid Work and Family Formations, Palgrave MacMillan

Dr Seán Farren

Seán is a visiting professor at the University of Ulster where he is engaged with partnership projects with universities across east Africa. He is the author of three books, several book chapters and numerous articles on education, and on politics in Northern Ireland. He was a senior negotiator during the talks leading to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Seán served in the new Northern Ireland government first as minister for further and higher education, and later as minister for finance and personnel. Prior to his political career, he taught in secondary schools in Sierra Leone, Switzerland and Ireland.

Tony Foster

Tony graduated from Oxford University in Jurisprudence, but has spent his entire career in the shipping industry. He worked for 13 years in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan, before re-settling in London in 1988. He has held numerous ownership positions in shipping and is the founder and CEO of Marine Capital Ltd, which provides commercial and technical shipping services to institutional investors. Tony became a trustee in 2011 and Vice Chairman of Concern Worldwide (UK) in 2013.

Jemima Jewell

Jemima’s background is in corporate sustainability. She has spent much of her career working with companies – from multi-national corporations to small social enterprises – on how to harness the power of businesses to address social and environmental challenges and opportunities.

Jemima is currently head of food business at Compassion in World Farming, working with companies to improve standards of animal welfare and sustainability. She was previously director of partnerships at CSR Asia in Hong Kong. Jemima has a first class degree in human sciences from Oxford University and has undertaken a year’s professional leadership programme in social enterprise.

Rob McGrigor (Honorary Treasurer)

Rob has more than 26 years of financial and commercial experience in various energy sectors and has been an FCA since 1991.

He is currently a partner in Kinetix Corporate Finance, an advisory firm he co-founded in 2010, which is exclusively focussed on the cleantech and sustainability sectors.

After graduating, he spent 8 years with Arthur Andersen before joining the FTSE 100, LASMO plc, ultimately becoming Group Financial Controller. In 2001 he became FD of an acquisitive VC-backed service company until facilitating its sale in 2003. In 2004 he was central to the preparation and marketing for AIM flotation of a renewable energy company. Rob then spent 6 years as FD of one of the UK’s premier anaerobic digestion developers.

Bernadette Sexton

Bernadette Sexton works at McKinsey & Company. Her career has focused on international development having served governments of developing and emerging economies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Bernadette has supported development agencies and governments on a wide range of economic and social development topics. For this, she has been recognised by DevEx as one of London's top 40 international development leaders under 40 years of age, recognised for shaping and impacting on aid and development. She has a deep interest in development aid effectiveness, poverty alleviation and inclusion of marginalised groups.

James Shaw-Hamilton

James works with colleagues in Teach First and in universities to train great teachers to serve low-income communities across England and Wales. Teach First’s vision is that no child’s educational success is limited by their background.

Before joining Teach First, James worked with charities in the UK and overseas to improve their influence over decision-makers. He managed programmes to train leaders in charities and government in a variety of countries. Most recently, he was the director of a network improving co-operation between Islamic and western aid organisations. James started his career as a commercial lawyer and has a masters degree in international relations.

Sam Sims

Sam is the Chief Operating Officer at Frontline, an independent charity with a mission to transform the lives of vulnerable children by recruiting and developing outstanding individuals to be leaders in social work and broader society.

Prior to joining Frontline, Sam served as Director of Development at Teach First, where he worked between 2009 and 2016, and has previously held positions at Yale University Office of Development and at Oxford Integra.

Sam was educated at University College London and the University of Oxford.

Barbara O’Reilly

Barbara worked with Concern in Dublin from 1990–1994 before commencing a two year assignment to Rwanda to help set up Concern’s operation there. She was also employed by the United Nations, focused on the repatriation of displaced Rwandans from Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Tanzania.

She holds a Masters Degree in Business and Technology from the University of New South Wales and M.Sc. in Organisational Behaviour from the University of Birkbeck. She is currently employed as the Global Network Director for RSA Insurance Group in the City of London.

She joined the board of Concern in 2008, and has now joined the Board of Concern Worldwide UK. She was previously on the Board of the Organisational Development Committee.

Peggy Walters

Peggy Walters is a policy and communications specialist in the area of global health. She is currently Communications Director with the World Heart Federation. Peggy was educated at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, where she read Communications and Sociology and holds a Masters’ degree in International Communications and Development.

Donald Workman (Chair)

After school in Edinburgh, Donald took a degree in chemistry from Oxford. Since then he has always worked in the financial sector, latterly spending 25 years in senior roles with RBS in Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam and Asia. His most recent roles at RBS included Executive Chairman of the Asia Pacific region, based in Hong Kong, Executive Chairman of Corporate and Institutional Banking based in London, and latterly Executive Chairman of Private Banking (which included Coutts bank).

He was also chairman of the Edinburgh College of Art, and a member of Court at Edinburgh University. He is also non-Executive Chairman of JCB Finance Ltd.

Management

The day to day management of Concern Worldwide UK is the responsibility of the Executive Management Team. The principle that “management purposes, board decides, management implements, board monitors,” forms the basis of the board and management relationship.

Policy, strategic planning and budgets are prepared by management for consideration and approval by the board.

Finance committee

The board appointed an Audit and Finance Committee, which is made up of the Honorary Treasurer, Vice Chair and one or more other Trustees with relevant experience.

The Audit and Finance Committee have responsibility for the monitoring of the organisation’s financial systems and policies. This includes the audit and risk management systems.

Legal Status

Concern Worldwide UK is a limited company by guarantee and all of the Trustees are also full directors of Concern Worldwide UK for company law purposes. The company is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (Charity Number 1092236).

Important links (Concern Worldwide)

Follow Concern Worldwide on:

Concern Worldwide (UK) is a Company Limited By Guarantee And Not Having A Share Capital (Registered in England and Wales with registered number 4323646) which has been granted Charitable Status by The Charity Commission for England and Wales (Registered Number 1092236) and The Office of The Scottish Charity Regulator (Registered Number SCO38107). The Registered Offices of Concern Worldwide (UK) are 13/14 Calico House, Plantation Wharf, London, SW11 3TN. Concern Worldwide (UK) is a subsidiary organisation of Concern Worldwide an Irish Registered Charity.